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Let’s talk about God

Imagine writing of your God. Imagine writing the words of your God. The very words of your God. The One you worship. The one you adore. The one you follow. The One to whom you have surrendered your living and dying. The one you hold as the Creator of All.

That God.

What a responsibility to hear correctly. To listen attentively. To remove any trace of mere “mortal” from those hallowed words. What a burden to clarify each letter, each mark of punctuation, each paragraph and alliteration. Imagine writing of your God. The words of your God. The very words your God spoke to you alone.

Can you imagine that? Could you accept that responsibility? Would you volunteer for such a burden? Would you rise up to speak the very words of this God so unique and personal to each?

I have heard those who fear. Who fear hearing as God speaks. Who tremble at the possibility of imagining God’s words rather than hearing the very words of God. Who think their relationship with their God too private to share publicly.

I have heard many reasons.

Yet I read so many blogs with God as the theme. I have attended so many services with God at their core. I have sung many hymns of praise, so many hymns of worship. I have recited creeds and I have actually preached the bible. And I have seen many live their lives for Christ. I see so many whose diaries are full of Kingdom Work. I know so many who life is the church and their professional relationship with God.

And yet …

I see so often a reluctance to share an intimacy of their own of God. I hear many reasons why their words of God are not heard clearly enough to share with others.

The post this morningwas only about intimate relationship with “God”. About hearing the very “words of God”. About a relationship so personal and private it is way beyond worship. A relationship so real that it cannot be worship.

A relationship that is love. And like any relationship of love there are chosen moments to share.

So I wonder why we each find it easier to talk about words uttered 2000+ years ago than the moment you and He shared today. I wonder why so many find it easier to talk only of the bible and words written by those not even there so often. I wonder why we seem to choose isms and ologies rather than share the touches and whispers – those touches without movement and these words without sound.

If my God is only to be found in the bible then I have not found him at all. My bible is merely my personal gateway.

Because my God is to be found deep within every cell of my being. Every moment of awareness of every day. Every thought and ponder. Every word and reply. Every listening and not listening. Every quiet moment. And each loud moment drowning out all but life itself.

Why would I then choose to talk about a dry and dusty ism, a tedious and theoretical ology? Why would I choose that over the joy, the sorrow, the laughter and tears … the All of the God in you – who is the same God in me? So I wonder …

You’ve perfectly described erotomania, but your target is of your own imagination based on having conversations within your bicameral brain. Shocking how susceptible we are to empowering this kind of fiction, isn’t it?

The trick – the basis for reasonable critical thinking – is realizing that it is a presumption that could be in error if we assume we know the Truth (TM) first and then ask reality to comport to this, rather than allowing reality the right to inform and give strength to our beliefs about it. This order is absolutely vital if we are not to be so credulous and gullible as to be foolish. And we are so easily fooled. That’s what faith-based beliefs are: the product of being fooled.

But it works ways. There is a physical reality and also a spiritual one. You can see a tree, so you know it is real. You can’t see the wind, doesn’t make it less real. Jesus explains things in the natural, the seen, so we can comprehend spiritual things/the unseen. All creation is testifying to The Creator. How can you see a tree, but not feel the wind or its effects? This is what I can’t comprehend.

Education, we were told at our commencement, is what you have left when you’ve forgotten everything you have been told.

What does that mean?

Well, it means that what you think is determined by how you think. Education is a process of learning how to think better, learning how to think differently, able to utilize different ways of thinking applied to a single issue. Many ways. And the key to understanding why this ability matters is to experience different answers to the same questions, all of which may be true. The central feature to this education is to learn how to ask the the right questions. Not collecting answers.Not being satisfied with intellectual pablum. Learning how to ask the right questions and recognizing good questions when encountered. You have not asked the right questions here. You have projected by analogy a set of assumptions. That’s all you’ve done.

So I’ll bother to explain why this method fails to achieve what you think it achieves: insight.

Your tree/wind analogy fails because it is based entirely on a projection you have already assumed to be true. The projection you lay on me is not true, and so the conclusion you have reached cannot help but be wrong. Yet, how could you ever know this to be the problem, know that how you’ve thought about this analogy was doomed to avoid what is true, was guaranteed to produce a false conclusion, was a rationalization produced entirely from you that you then effortlessly and thoughtlessly projected on to me as if I were the one able to see a tree but unable to feel the wind or its effects unless I believe in divine agencies of Oogity Boogity (I suspect you have one in particular in mind).

You see the problem?

In your mind you’ve already guaranteed only the answer you want but have created an unnecessary problem and division between us by assuming your assumption is correct first, that you can safely assume there really is such a creative agency, that this assumed agency really does cause effect – that this effect can be ‘felt’ like the wind but not ‘seen’ like the tree – and that to appreciate the scope and depth of this hidden yet real causal agency that creates a ‘spiritual’ dimension you but not I have access to, that this belief you hold is the way to appreciate the role of ‘spirituality’ in life.

You are wrong at every step. Yet you believe it to be ‘true’. Your belief is insufficient, and that’s the fact of the matter.

You are wrong at every step because of HOW you have approached it, the method you have used. It is not an educated method but a blunt one equivalent in all ways to not just arrogance but ignorance cloaked as ‘insight’. You’ve guaranteed the answer you want, the answer you already believe is true, the ‘what’, because of how you have approached it. This method of thinking you demonstrate, of assuming your creationist belief is true first and then trying to comport reality – the physical trees and spiritual wind, so to speak – to it, guarantees the only ‘conclusion’ you will ever reach is the one you want to believe is true. You’ve assumed the answer. It’s a circle of thinking that is closed to allowing reality its say in this casual chain you presume is true about it, that things really are created by a divine agency, and your mind becomes nothing but an echo chamber for you to misrepresent your beliefs to be ‘known’ when, in fact, you clearly mistake the premise – is there a creative divine agency causing effect in our reality? – with the conclusion you wish, that you import, that you believe. That’s clearly a pseudo-answer masquerading as ‘knowledge’, a belief you already hold masquerading as the Truth (TM) that you think, you assume, you presume, you possess, that you think reality supports.

It doesn’t… and we know this because it simply doesn’t exist in fact independent of your imported belief.

That’s just the brute fact of the matter.

Yet this method you use to ‘reach’ the conclusion you already believe to be true has no means available to you to question it honestly, question it independently of your imported beliefs, no means to ask of it the honest questions, seek honest answers from reality regarding it, allow reality to inform and support whatever really is the case, no means to allow you to produce your own beliefs independent of the religious teachings you have received.

That makes you a parrot.

You have fooled yourself into thinking your assumption is knowledge, that your projection is accurate, and the (small) expense for you to continue to feel justified in your own creationist beliefs is for you to then lay on me this bizarre notion that I am the one missing out on something true here, that I am the one lacking something, some means, to experience the ‘spirituality’ represented by the wind in your analogy, that I am the one with a deficiency of this something, this sense, you call ‘spiritualism’. Well, I’m not.

“Education, we were told at our commencement, is what you have left when you’ve forgotten everything you have been told.”
I love that!
I do understand where you are coming from. It wasn’t my intention to project onto you. Our realities and perceptions are so subjective that unless we have truly walked in the other persons shoes, we will all be guilty of projecting from time to time.

It’s fine to project but recognizing when we do this should mitigate the confusion between projecting and adducing and the very real differences between them. In a nutshell, faith-based belief projects (that’s why you require faith) while evidence adduced belief concludes… but it doesn’t here. In addition, evidence adduced beliefs are then tested. We create a model that presumes the hypothesis is true and then sees how well or how conclusively the evidence fits the model. If we cannot find any evidence that conflicts with the model, we call this ‘knowledge’ and then demonstrate its utility by using the explanation as the basis for applications, therapies, and technologies that just so happen to work for everyone everywhere all the time. That kind of substantiation means that the explanatory model is deserving of a higher level of confidence than explanatory models used to substantiate faith-based beliefs. So when the two come into direct conflict – say, creationism vs evolution – then we know the two are not equivalent, that the former is not deserving of as much confidence as the latter. When you add the fact that there is no evidence of tinkering or intervention found anywhere in biology, then that confidence level should drop appropriately.

But we don;t see this. What we see is that we only have creationism where we have inflated religious belief. And that tells us that creationism is a religious idea imported and then imposed on good science. And that should trouble any reasonable, rational person.

A tree you can analyze, manipulate, and to some extent control it. We like that, it makes us feel safe, knowledgeable, and sure of ourselves. The wind not so much. We can’t control it, put it under a microscope, or tell it what to do or where to go. It can be powerful or like a whisper, and a lot of people fear it, like during a hurricane. This is also the reason I think many people are so set on denying it/Him. To have faith, we have to believe in something bigger, wiser, and more powerful than ourselves. That can be hard to do because we are often so blinded by lies, the need to feel in control, and our own egos, that we miss what is right in front of us.

One way to look at how we think is to change the object under discussion to something similar and see if the reasoning still holds true. If it doesn’t, then we’re allowing the object to dictate value rather than the method of reasoning applied to have value.

For example, when did you set out to deny Mictlancihuatl? Look at how less your life is for this rejection.

I don’ t think you did set out to deny Mictancihuatl… ever. But I also think you have absolutely no good reason to believe in this deity. So, extend the same courtesy: I have absolutely no good reason to believe in any other deity, yours included… no matter how you craft the description of your deity to be synonymous with something “bigger, wiser, and more powerful than ourselves.” There are lots of organizations and agencies bigger, wiser, and more powerful than moi, and none of them require magic and superstitious belief. Yours shouldn’t either… if it’s real.

You’re playing with words here. But you maintain this idea that someone not believing as you do must involve some kind of denial, going along with some kind of lie. Notice how you not believing in some kind of magical agency suddenly is being described by you using negative terminology. Yet I don’t think any less of you for not believing in Mictancihuatl. You have no cause for this change in vocabulary… other than import it first and then impose it on others. This is a tactic imported by you to pretend your beliefs in agencies of Oogity Boogity! are by fiat something virtuous, something grand, something insightful, something valuable… yet you’re careful to present all of this with a imported sense of humbleness. It’s anything but humble. It’s grandiose magical thinking that uses the absence of belief by others to be the springboard above which you now reside… because you believe, you see, whereas those other poor, lost, lying, deceiving souls who refuse to go along with automatically respecting your faith-based beliefs deserve some measure of suffering. It’s actually quite perverted, de9k.

And the wind is real because it has properties, you see, properties we can know a very great about. Your creator god, on the other hand…. nada.

I seek to shock you. I seek to have you made aware that you are feeding a creation you have designed with what you presume in some way justifies love. You remind me of nuns who love their mental versions of the perfect man they call ‘Jesus’ to exclusion of living their own lives, having their own real relations with real people and instead live their artificial emotional lives entirely in their heads.

Be a loving person, by all means. Be kind and considerate and thoughtful, by all means. But stop attributing all this to a delusional stalker-like relationship you have created in your mind between you and the creator of the universe – a relationship that duplicates what otherwise would be diagnosed as a mental illness if directed to any other entity. You are justifying your beliefs by wrapping them in a love blanket and then attributing that love to reciprocal relationship that is entirely fictional. Your family deserves better from you than having this Harvey-like third entity (Harvey the six foot invisible white rabbit, you’ll recall) accompanying you but haunting them every time you interact with them.

Thank you. However, I find being shocked in these conversations almost impossible. You remind me of the fundamentalists of the same religions we both seem to agree on so much. I find they bang a drum of rightness, reject any alternative living, and insist that (because of their rightness) all others must agree with them. It is less shocking than frustrating because it is not “connection” – not relationship – it is a bullying.

As for “mental illness”. Stats tell me that around a third of the population will suffer mental illness at some point in their lives (and I think that is just the ones who seek help – others who see no need to be “helped” would probably add to the percentage). Yet I see a great “smoke and mirrors” in the attribution of “not normal”.

I see that many have a therapist, use the gym, use work, use hobbies – use so many things in so many different ways – to stay “normal”. Yet all those are deemed socially and culturally acceptable.

So when you assume that this stuff is an intrusion – a deception – a negative – you miss the alternative. That without this belief stuff I might not be the loving fellow my family love. I might be the workaholic (and have been), I might be a perfectionist (and have been), I might be unbalanced and out of kilter. And my family might just like the balanced calm accepting member of the family – and also accept the reasons for that. Because some are curious and some are not. But none are “haunted” (I know you will have to take my word for that – but that is the truth).

Mental health is important. Except I think we have a blinkered view of that as well. From what we have discussed in the past I recall you have a professional interest. For me “balance” has become the key to gentle living. And – for me – my relationship with “oogity boogity” or “Harvey” – or whatever disparaging name you prefer is a big part of that balance.

I do not wish you to believe as I do. I do not wish you to live as I do. I only wish to live in balance gently and with acceptance of all being sacred and all of the same value as me. So if you find something of value in this blog – then that is your finding and not my “religious working”. And if you find something that offends – then my question is “Why?”

Because I sense no desire for relationship – you seemingly have no apparent wish for connection. You – from what I read- only wish to tell me I am wrong – and to tell me why – and (I assume) desire to “shock me” into changing to believe more as you do.

But … I sense you come at this with belief rather than fact or science – the commenting I mean.

For the sensible thing would be to unfollow/not read/read and move on. Yet you invest in your comments – you give something of you in your comments. You bring your living and beliefs to your commenting (because mine do not sit well with you). So I see your commenting being driven of belief rather than fact.

For the fact is neither of us need invest any time in this virtual world – yet we both do. We both invest time here when we could both not invest time here. Because that investment is of belief. Does that not seem odd to you?

Is that any less of a mental illness than that of which you accuse me? And why should we be on “opposite” sides simply because one of us accepts “balance over labels” – and the other doesn’t.

(and I am going to work this brief correspondence into a post because your thoughts have prompted new thoughts in me – and isn’t that the fun of living – to find more in common than difference?)

I have no idea if any of this will sit well with you. And maybe that is less important than the impact your words have made on me. For I do not see your Harvey or Oggity-Boogity as a threat. Nor do I need you to agree with my name of Love or God Soft Hands Jesus or God or Jesus or Maker or … for my name for this “God” that offends you changes. I do not need you to agree with me.

But by your questions and comments, I find my God Soft Hands Jesus in you as well. For GSHJ is not a thing to me. It is a connection of love at a level where words don’t do it – but words are all we have – so words of misunderstanding will have to do. And you bring your words here through more than being right. You bring them here because you believe. And that is something else we have in common.

Thank you tildeb. Once again I find we are connected. And for me that is the balance of “balance”.

Chalk it up to my willingness to show care and concern when I think it is appropriate. Life isn’t about love – although love is a very important gift as well as a curse. Life is all about suffering – including the suffering that is attached to love – yet being grown up enough to accept this in exchange for an authentic and well lived life. That’s the message of wisdom from the Genesis myth, growing up and accepting the costs of real world living in exchange for your autonomy… an autonomy that can only come about when armed by the knowledge of good and evil from, you guessed it, the tree of life. Without that, you cannot live. You can only temporarily exist in a pseudo-world, a place between the imaginary and the real. That necessary knowledge cannot be undone any more than a life can be lived only by love. Such a life is impossible because it cannot be achieved except by withdrawing from the real world.

I point out the similarity with erotomania to demonstrate that changing the object of the fixation reveals the problem embedded in the thinking behind it. Change the object of adoration and you see just how unhealthy is the fixation. Change the love to another powerful emotion and you can see just how destructive the thinking can be, the path where it naturally leads. That’s the danger you face and I suspect that not if but when life intrudes into your dream state with very real and profound suffering, you will be ill equipped to deal with it in a healthy and wise way required by the health and welfare of your family. And that’s a shame because it doesn’t have to be this way now that you’re aware of the risk and so you will have the means to revisit the core problem.

Of course, it’s easier to prepare when you are of sound mind and steady emotions outside of a crisis – by knowledge that yields wisdom in the same way preparing for disaster allows one a much better chance to come through it. But the crash that will follow your bubble world bursting when you are trying to live in the dream state yet reality intrudes will create large scale destruction when your love becomes the source of unbearable suffering and you lash out. That’s why people equivalently under the glamor of their own making lash out against the object they presume has turned their back on them. It’s an illness, Paul, because it’s an unhealthy emotional fixation.

I find Genesis an interesting story. One intended, I think, to say that “my dad is bigger than your dad” (in a world of gods who were set against each other). And written for a “chosen people” as “our dad is the biggest dad of all”. So I don’t see the “genetic debt” preached by the Christian faith in that context. But the longer I live, the more I have found love to be the key to my balance in life – and that includes accepting of all what comes with real living with real others in the real world.

(in fact withdrawing and becoming a monk has no interest for me – this world is too rich in everything I love – and full of people who think the opposite until they are invited to see a different way of thinking of love )

So I have no problem in also discarding your linkage of erotomania and (the theory of) bicameral brain. Not that I am of unsound mind (although I would say that), but only because I think your conclusion is so fixed that your arguments will always support that conclusion (which I se you use as your argument against den9k’s comments).

It may be why you talk in “universals”- the repeated use if “it” and “it’s” as though all should think like that. I am not a fan of “universals” – they imply truth where only opinion exists – and opinion, dear tildeb, is just another word for belief.

So because you and I are connected in some way, I will share a very personal (non universal) piece.

I have faced the trauma of “my bubble bursting” in a very real way. No imagination required. A deeply personal relationship of this world. Almost everyone on both sides (for there always are sides in such a circumstance) advised closure and moving on. And it seemed that I alone believed love would triumph. And it did. And I have no idea why, and no idea how. But through that I have experienced that love is indeed greater than death. And I was totally “ill-equipped” to deal with any of that. And all around me was anger and the “lashing out” you refer to. Yet a deeply held belief in love (and the courage of that love) brought about what others did not believe. And I was probably mentally unstable at that time. Because much as I wanted closure (and to lash out) – I desired of love something greater.

And throughout there was one who was the most gentle. It is the one I call GSHJ, and then one you call my illness. So no matter your belief in your rightness – I think your rightness is also your wrongness. Because I know that lashing out is not a certain consequence nor a universal.

Hi tildeb, I usually have to refer to a dictionary and/or google to understand your point – no criticism intended. So …
The first word desctibes a physical being not spiritual – I had this happen to me once and it was most off-putting. I think it always is when not reciprocated or invited.
The second word seems to be a hypothesis (and as proven as the post you are disproving). I admit to scanning the top results – but I am not seeing it used in the same factual way as you use it.
So your conclusion … seems to me to be more belief than fact.